Why Thinking Small Is The Secret To Big Success

Lewis Howes
, ContributorMarketing, entrepreneurship and the parallels of sports and businessOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

"Goals in writing are dreams with deadlines." - Brian Tracy

In a perfect world, reaching the halfway point of 2012 would mean that we were halfway through our 2012 goals, right?

But what about if you’re someone who constantly struggles with achieving your goals? Do you know what’s standing in your way?

Do you think your goals are just too big to accomplish?

Do you feel you have bad luck?

Or is it that you just didn’t “want it” bad enough?

I highly doubt it’s any of these. In fact, I would argue that the greatest problem that’s been preventing you from accomplishing your biggest goals is that you’re not thinking small enough.

Yes, you read it correctly: You aren’t thinking SMALL enough.

Goal Setting 101

When it comes to setting goals, there’s no shortage of books, blueprints, gurus and seminars that offer guaranteed results for making your wildest dreams come true.

While the names of the programs may change, they typically follow the same path and process below.

1. Decide what you want

2. Proclaim your dream to your friends and family

3. Set a deadline

4. Break down the goal into smaller steps

5. Identify someone who’s accomplished a similar goal and model their attitude and belief system

6. Believe it’s possible

7. Take massive action

8. Repeat steps 6 & 7 every day

Now there’s nothing wrong with these steps - the steps work. The problem lies in believing that the goals we set are even possible.

Belief is like a muscle; unless it’s developed it remains weak, small and basically useless.

So when we set large goals, we are requiring ourselves to also have an equally large belief system to support it. It doesn’t matter how much we “want it” or how much we “proclaim it” – all that matters is how much we BELIEVE it. It’s this true belief that affects all of our actions.

Big Goals + Small Belief =

1. We set a BIG goal (usually the same goal we’ve been promising ourselves for years)

2. We tell ourselves “I just need to get more motivated” or “I’ve really got to want it this time”

3. We map out what we need to do

4. We take a couple steps…

5. Then SPLAT! We face our first trial or miss our first deadline and spiral off course